On faith, reason, and theology.

And the LORD God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die.” (Genesis 2:16-17)

According to Genesis 2-3, the original sin was spurning God’s good and gracious provision and disobeying his one prohibition to not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. To understand the seriousness of this transgression, it helps to unpack the meaning of the Hebrew idiom “knowledge of good and evil”. In Daniel Fuller’s The Unity of the Bible, he writes:

“When the original readers of the Old Testament encountered the expression “to know good and evil,” they understood such knowledge to be what mature adults possess — a maturity in which they were independent and therefore responible for the decisions they made.

Understanding this term in Genesis 3:5 in this way coheres well with the way Genesis 2:4-3:24 has been expounded thus far. The command not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil would then mean that Adam and Eve were not to aspire to the maturity possessed only by God, whereby they might consider themselves to be independent of him and able to enjoy a fulfilled life by taking matters into their own hands and making their own decisions for their future welfare. . . . A contemporary scholar agrees with this interpretation. “[Here] man takes upon himself the responsibility of trying apart from God to determine whether something is good for himself or not.”"

In short, the original sin of man was self-autonomous rebellion against God. It was man’s determined attempt to throw off God’s fatherly guidance/provision and to seek a life of happiness and fulfillment apart from Him. Fundamental to all human sin is a desire to be our own masters, making our own decisions, directing our own future welfare.

And so we’re convinced that we know what is good for us – what would advance our happiness and increase our joy — and what is bad for us — what would hinder our happiness and diminish our joy. Life is filled with illustrations of how humans, living apart from God, are convinced they have the knowledge to determine what is good and evil.

“I know that acting out on this sexual desire will be good for me and make me happy.”
“I know what kind of marriage best serves the interest of children and society as a whole.”
“I know that ‘taking care’ of this unwanted pregnancy will be the best for my future.”
“I know that I my life will be more secure and comfortable if I can amass enough wealth.”

Sadly, we are still reaping the sinful effects of what our first parents sowed in the Garden. But the good news of the Gospel is that God sent His Son to reverse the effects of the Fall! Consider Fuller’s words:

“Such an interpretation of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil links up with Christ’s command to ‘change and become like little children’ in order to enter the kingdom of God (Mt. 18:3). It indicates that the essential way in which people are rebelling against God is that they are assuming that, like him, they can make the decisions necessary for enjoying a fulfilled and happy future. The folly of this rebellion is that people think they love themselves more, are wiser, and thus better able than the all-loving, omniscient, omnipotent God to provide for themselves the fulfillment they crave. Thus conversion, according to Jesus, reverses the act of the Fall and makes a declaration, not of independence from God, but of dependence upon him. Converts thus become little children, who gladly confess that only their heavenly Father knows the niche into which they should fit in order to enjoy permanent fulfillment.”

Friends, God loves you more than you love yourself. That means He loves and seeks your greatest good with more zeal and determination than you can ever muster. And He has revealed in the scriptures that your greatest good is to live in dependent, childlike (not childish) relationship with Himself. That is why He sent His Son Jesus to the cross to die for our sins, reconciling unholy sinners to the Holy God. And now the invitation to enter such a relationship is open to all who turn from their self-autonomous independence and place their trust and dependence on His Son Jesus.